Week 172 Update

I decided to get Mr. Scale up early this morning when I stepped up on him at 04:38, and he said, "183.0 pounds!" It is a good thing that I didn't let him sleep any longer or he might have said something lower.

It was a nice 59º when I arose, and it actually dropped a degree before I went out for a morning walk.

This week was much better on holding my weight in line. I did move over the top on Thursday when I weighed 188.0 but that was because of the anti-inflammatory medication I had taken the previous couple of days. On Friday, I set the medication aside and the water weight disappeared. Other than that, I was happy with all of my daily weigh-ins. I hit 50 points on Sunday, but I was in the 30s for three days and low forties on two more days. In the end I averaged eating 40.57 points per day. For me that is low; and so it is not surprising that my weigh-in was down a pound, and my average weight was down over a quarter of a pound, even with the anti-inflammatory meds.

This week I hit 53 years of age as I celebrated my birthday on Tuesday. It is always a time to reflect on life, and what the "season of the year" is as a birthday marks the passing of another 365.24218967 days (for the mean tropical year, as calculated by averaging over all tropical ecliptic points). In 1965, when the Frank Sinatra song "It Was a Very Good Year" was released, I was 14, and the first verse where he sang, "When I was seventeen" seemed like it was a long ways off. It was followed by a verse about being 21 and then one about being 35. I used to sing that song when I was 16 and then when I was 17, and it is amazing that the verse about being 35 speaks of a time when my age was reversed (53 to 35) and I was 18 years younger than I am today, more years than the first verse's age of 17. The final verse, begins with the lines, "But now the days grow short; I'm in the autumn of my life." As far as the seasons go, autumn is my favorite, and we will be into that season in less than a month. However, as a time of life, I suppose it is as any other, something that is natural and that has its positive and negative aspects. Winter is drawing on, and we all tend to close our eyes to that fact until we can no longer ignore it. In the meantime I am striving to push off the inevitable as much as I can.

One way that I am doing that is by exercising. The weather this week has been great for walking. We have seen a fair amount of rain, but we have rain gear to wear if it comes down too hard. In the evening, when Dotti and I have walked, the temperature has been in the 60s nearly every night, and on several evenings it has been in the low 60s. The same was true for my morning walks. Even the lunchtime walks were not too warm on most days, never going above the 70s. This is uncharacteristic for August. Normally the temperature drops into the low 60s or 50s in the evenings, but the daytime temperatures are usually in the 80s.

This week I walked 42.3 miles. For the month of August, I was up to 91.3 by the close of Friday. (Today I pushed it up to 99.5 miles, but that is for next week's update.) This week I hit the 1 million meters walked "milestone" (if that term can be used for a metric event) for the year. One megameter sounds pretty cool, and one million of anything seems like a lot. One thousand kilometers sounds good too, but even though it is exactly the same as a megameter, it seems less somehow.

Looking at my "Miles Walked" graph, I am behind the curve for making my 1,200 miles for 2004, and I am concerned that I might overdo it trying to catch up. So, I have been running over in my mind the idea of doing a reset and starting over, and beginning my walking year at August 1, 2004. That would take the pressure off and allow me to walk 23.1 miles or a bit more each week and be right on track. On the other hand, I don't like throwing in the towel on something I have been striving for. Friday I reached 642.4 miles for the year (today I reached 650.6 miles) which is about 150 miles behind where I should be at the end of August. I still have about 18 weeks left, with about 550 miles to walk.

That is just over 30 miles per week. I can do that. By walking 5 miles a day on the weekdays, and one 3.1-mile walk on the weekend, I will be up to at least 28.1. A couple of extra walks in the morning each week and I have it covered, still allowing for a rest day each week. If I do one mile in the morning, two miles at lunch and then 3.1 in the evening I can get the miles I need without walking on the weekend at all. As long as it seems doable without pushing beyond what I know I can do, I probably will not give up on this. Like the mountain, the 1,200-mile goal has no real purpose other than it is there. I am getting 2 or 3 times the number of aerobic points I need for cardio fitness.

Speaking of aerobic points, I earned 105.81 of them this week! That is the biggest cardio workout that I have had all year for any given week. The fact that I had two days where I walked 7.5 miles, and another where I walked 7.1 helped a lot in building up the aerobic points. For the entire year I am now averaging 45 aerobic points per week. I can't think of any other year where I was consistently getting this much exercise. The only way that I can stay with it is to have goals to drive me, and that is another reason that I don't want to turn loose of my 1,200 mile goal.

I did fairly well on the water this week. I drank at least 6 cups each day and I averaged drinking 59.4 ounces (7.4 cups) per day and that is on the upper side of my minimum goal of 6 to 8 cups per day.

This upcoming week we will be visiting our neighboring state to the east of us for a few days. The drive is not too bad, and we are looking forward to the trip.

3 years, 109 days OP; a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

6 '3" 239.5/183.0/180±2/BMI:22.87/WK-172
GRAPHS: Weight Loss/Year 1 Maint./Year 2 Maint./Year 3 Maint./Miles Walked
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